Cheaper Profound Alternatives: Published Prices, Full Coverage

Q: Does Profound have a free trial?

Yes. Profound offers a free seven-day Brand Trial with limited AI Marketer credits: 50 prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. It ends after seven days rather than tracking on, with no history, exports, or API. Ongoing brand tracking needs a custom Enterprise quote.

Q: Why is Profound considered expensive?

A brand that wants ongoing tracking has to ask for a custom Enterprise quote, because the free Trial ends after seven days. The only published paid price is for agencies: $99/month plus $399/month per client, or $498/month for one client on three engines. That is $166 per engine, while a flat plan like Trakkr Growth works out to about $12.50 per engine across all 8.

Q: What should I track if I am switching off Profound to save money?

Keep the parts that drive decisions: which AI engines mention your brand, which competitors they recommend instead, which URLs they cite, how they describe you, and whether AI crawlers can reach the pages you want cited. A complete budget tool should cover all of those plus give you a clear next action, not just a single mention count.

What is the cheapest Profound alternative?

For basic monitoring, Otterly (around $29/month) is the cheapest credible option. For a complete workflow with a published price, Trakkr is $100/month flat. The honest reason this search exists: Profound removed its $99 Starter and $399 Growth brand plans in mid-September 2026. Brands now get a free seven-day Trial or a custom Enterprise quote, and agencies pay $99/month plus $399/month per client workspace.

Trakkr tracks all 8 major AI engines on every plan with a 14-day trial, so coverage does not move with price. There is no free tier: it is a flat paid plan. If you only want to look first, run the free AI rank tracker with no account.

Cheapest monitoring: Otterly ~$29/mo · limited engines
Cheapest complete tool: $100/mo flat · all 8 engines · 14-day trial
Profound brand plans: Free Trial · Enterprise custom · agencies $99 + $399/client
Verified: September 2026 · Pricing page

Cheap should not mean blind. In AI visibility the real question is not the sticker price, it is how many engines, prompts, citations, and exports the entry tier actually gives you. A free trial that watches three engines for one week tells you less than a flat plan that watches all of them every day.

This page is part of the Profound buyer-intent cluster. For the full shortlist, start with the main Profound alternatives guide. To compare two products directly, read Profound vs Trakkr. For the full pricing breakdown, see the Profound pricing review.

What Profound charges now

Profound removed its $99 Starter and $399 Growth brand plans in mid-September 2026. A brand now gets a free seven-day Trial or a custom Enterprise quote, with nothing published in between. The only published paid price is for agencies. Here is the ladder, read from the pricing page.

Brand Trial, free

One week, not ongoing tracking

The Trial runs 50 prompts daily for seven days on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, with limited AI Marketer credits. There is no history, no exports, and no API, so it cannot show change beyond that week.

3 engines, for 7 days

Brand Enterprise, custom quote

Ongoing brand tracking is custom

Up to 9 answer engines, SSO/SAML, SOC 2, and dedicated support sit in a custom quote. Profound does not publish an Enterprise price.

Up to 9 engines

Agency Growth, $99 + $399/client

The only published paid price

A $99/month base plus $399/month per client workspace. Each workspace gets 100 prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, 400 Agent credits, and CSV/JSON exports. One client costs $498/month.

3 engines per client

The pricing page does not state billing terms for Agency Growth. Enterprise remains a custom quote. Verify current inclusions on the Profound pricing page.

The cost-per-engine math

The cleanest way to compare AI visibility tools on price is per engine tracked, because coverage is the thing you are actually buying. Profound publishes no brand plan price, so the only figure to work from is Agency Growth: $99 plus $399 for one client is $498 for three engines, or $166 per engine. A flat plan changes the shape of the bill.

Plan	Engines	Per engine	Note
Profound Agency Growth, one client ($498)	3	$166.00	agency plan, one client workspace
Profound Brand Enterprise	Up to 9	Custom	no published price
Trakkr Growth, $100/mo	8	$12.50	every major engine, flat

Lower-cost Profound alternatives compared

Entry price, engines covered at that tier, exports, and trial access for the budget shortlist. Trakkr is our product and the bias is named, so it sits in the table on the same footing as everyone else. Pricing in this category moves quickly; sources were checked in September 2026.

Tool	Entry price	AI engines	Exports	Trial	Best for
Otterly.AI	$29/mo Lite	Limited core set	Limited	7-day trial	Cheapest credible pulse check on whether AI engines mention you.
Rankscale	$204/year Essentials	Multi-engine	Basic	7-day Pro trial	Low-cost rank-style monitoring for a single brand.
Semrush AI Toolkit	$99/mo add-on	AI add-on layer	Yes (Semrush)	Semrush trial	A light AI layer if you already pay for Semrush.
Trakkr	$100/mo flat	All 8, every plan	Yes, all plans	14-day trial	Cheapest option that is actually complete: citations, competitors, Reddit, crawler logs, fixes.
AthenaHQ	$295/mo Self-Serve	Broad	Yes	Demo-led	Action-center workflow if credit billing is fine.
Scrunch	$250/mo Core	4 at Core	Yes	7-day trial	Strong if AI-ready page audits matter more than price.
Profound	Free Trial; Enterprise custom	Trial: 3; Enterprise: up to 9	None on Trial	Free 7-day Trial	Enterprise research: Prompt Volumes, Shopping, procurement clearance.

Otterly, Rankscale, Semrush, AthenaHQ, and Scrunch pricing reflect each vendor's published entry tier. Profound's brand plans are a free Trial and a custom Enterprise quote. Verify current plans before you buy.

Looking for a "free" Profound alternative?

Be straight with yourself first: running prompts across AI engines costs real money on every run, so no serious tracker is free forever, and Trakkr does not have a free tier. Trakkr is a flat paid plan with a 14-day trial. What is genuinely free, with no account and no card, are two standalone tools you can use right now to validate the problem:

Free AI rank tracker

See where you stand in ChatGPT today. No account, no card.

Profound pricing calculator

Estimate what a Profound quote would cost your team before you call sales.

Use those to confirm AI search matters for you, then start a 14-day Trakkr trial when you are ready to track it continuously across all 8 engines.

When Profound is still worth paying for

We sell Trakkr, so it is worth saying plainly: sometimes Profound is the right buy and a cheaper tool will leave you frustrated. If any of these is your situation, pay Profound and do not look back.

You need Prompt Volumes panel data, the demographic demand research that is genuinely distinctive and has no equivalent in a budget tool.

Enterprise procurement requires SOC 2 Type II today and will not move on it.

Budget is not the constraint and a custom enterprise quote is already approved.

Outside those cases, the budget question usually answers itself: a flat plan that covers every engine beats a low entry price that covers one. For the full feature-by-feature view, read Profound vs Trakkr.

What a cheap tool should still do

Cover every engine

ChatGPT alone misses Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, and Google AI Overviews. Coverage should not be a paywall.

Hold one price

Watch for add-ons for engines, seats, domains, and exports. A flat plan is cheaper than a low tier you keep topping up.

Tell you what to fix

A mention count is not a decision. The tool should show the citations, competitors, and fixes worth shipping this week.

Our Methodology

How this was researched: Pricing was checked against each vendor's public pricing page and product documentation in September 2026. Profound's brand plans are a free seven-day Trial and custom Enterprise; Agency Growth is $99/month plus $399/month per client workspace. Trakkr is our product and that bias is named on the page. Where Profound legitimately wins, we have said so. Cost-per-engine math is reproducible from the tables above.

A buyer who switched

Questions, answered.

The ones buyers ask most when Profound’s price is the problem.

Is there a cheaper Profound alternative?

Yes. For basic monitoring, Otterly starts at $29/month and Rankscale Essentials is $204/year. For a complete workflow with a published price, Trakkr is $100/month flat and tracks all 8 major AI engines on every plan, with a 14-day trial. Profound no longer publishes a paid brand plan: brands get a free seven-day Trial or a custom Enterprise quote, and agencies pay $99/month plus $399/month per client workspace.

How much does Profound really cost?

Profound removed its $99 Starter and $399 Growth brand plans in mid-September 2026. Brands now get a free seven-day Trial (50 prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews) or a custom Enterprise quote with up to 9 answer engines, SSO/SAML, and SOC 2. Agencies can buy Agency Growth at $99/month plus $399/month per client workspace, so one client costs $498/month for 100 daily prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

Does Profound have a free trial?

Is there a free Profound alternative?

Running prompts across AI engines costs money, so no serious tracker is free forever, and Trakkr has no free tier. Trakkr is a flat paid plan with a 14-day trial. What is genuinely free, with no account, is the standalone Trakkr AI rank tracker (see where you stand in ChatGPT today) and the Profound pricing calculator (estimate a Profound quote for your team). Use those to validate the problem, then move to a paid plan when AI search is a real channel.

Why is Profound considered expensive?

What should I track if I am switching off Profound to save money?

Ask anything else, like “What is the cheapest way to track all 8 AI models?”Ask anything else

The Agent answers from our docs, methods and pricing, and links to the source.

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